Wood

Despite the fact that it’s very easily found, he thinks there’s nothing quite like wood. Metal may be shinier and more versatile with heat, but wood has many uses as well.

It’s used as shelter to grow and extend over a weary traveller’s head, offering some protection from the elements. It’s burned in order to warm a cold body, or cook a meal or bake bread. It’s formed and shaped to offer rest for the weary, or places of storage and hoards of collections for the organised, or those who simply don’t want to forget or share. When sharpened or wielded, it can be used as a tool or even as a weapon to hurt and kill.

Life and death found in one unassuming material. He thinks it’s no wonder that people make gods out of wood as well, worshiping it as if it really does hold such power within its knots and grains, splintering as if revealing a painful secret.

But if he thinks long enough, wood can only ever respond to a stimulus. There’s really nothing hidden inside; no thought for humans or the constant cycle of birth, life and death. There’s nothing there to be amazed at, except the way it absorbs the culture of the people around.